We have previously noted Amanda Marcotte’s article on Salon, It’s OK to blame the unvaccinated — they are robbing the rest of us of our freedoms. Miss Marcotte was upset, very upset, that the gym of which she was a member responded to Philadelphia’s new regulations to either impose vaccination requirements, complete with “Ve need to see your papers” enforcement, or require all staff and patrons to wear a mask, and the gym chose the latter. She is, she sand, “incandescent with rage” at the willfully unvaccinated.
Of course, Miss Marcotte, while she does have a following, is still relatively unknown, at least as far as the big picture is concerned. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman, however, is well known, and if he didn’t use the phrase “incandescent with rage,” you can tell that it it would fit:
So how do you feel about anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers? I’m angry about their antics, even though I’m able to work from home and don’t have school-age children. And I suspect that many Americans share that anger.
The question is whether this entirely justified anger — call it the rage of the responsible — will have a political impact, whether leaders will stand up for the interests of Americans who are trying to do the right thing but whose lives are being disrupted and endangered by those who aren’t.
To say what should be obvious, getting vaccinated and wearing a mask in public spaces aren’t “personal choices.” When you reject your shots or refuse to mask up, you’re increasing my risk of catching a potentially deadly or disabling disease, and also helping to perpetuate the social and economic costs of the pandemic. In a very real sense, the irresponsible minority is depriving the rest of us of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Actually, getting vaccinated and wearing a mask are personal choices. Dr Krugman himself, exercised his personal choice to get vaccinated, as did Miss Marcotte, and as did I. What Dr Krugman wants is for the rest of us to not have a personal choice in this matter
Dr Krugman spent 834 words telling us how evil conservatives are, and, reading it, it could have been written by Miss Marcotte! But then there was this:
Recent polling suggests that the public strongly supports mask mandates and that an overwhelming majority of Americans opposes attempts to prevent local school districts from protecting children. I haven’t seen polling on attempts to prevent businesses from requiring proof of vaccination, but my guess is that these attempts are also unpopular.
Really? I’ve pointed out dozens of times that when Republican state legislative candidates in Kentucky ran against Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) executive orders, the voters rewarded the GOP hugely.
But it wasn’t just the Bluegrass State, which President Trump carried by a wide margin. In Pennsylvania, which Joe Biden won, the state legislature put two constitutional amendments on the May 18, 2021 primary ballot, measures which would limit the governor’s executive authority, and both of them passed, 53.3% to 47.7% and 53.2% to 47.8%.
One thing, however, ought to be obvious: if the public really do “strongly support” mask mandates, why aren’t we seeing that out on the streets? I had to go to Lexington again today, and drove through part of the University of Kentucky; had I been able to find a place to park, I would have gotten lunch at the Local Taco. Alas! I couldn’t find a parking space, but the other thing I couldn’t find were students, most of whom are normally more liberal than the population as a whole, wearing masks.
I spotted one, one! lady coming out of Sqecial Media wearing a mask, and she was visibly older than the usual student population.
As I made a right turn off South Limestone Street onto Vine Street to head home, I saw one lawyer-looking type wearing a mask.
That was it. Kentucky was very much a red state, with President Trump winning 62.09% of the vote, but Joe Biden carried Fayette County, 59.25% to 38.50%. In 2019, Attorney General Andy Beshear beat Governor Matt Bevin (R-KY) by 65.51% to 32.95% in Fayette County. If anyplace in Kentucky was going to “strongly support” a mask mandate, it would have been the areas around UK and downtown Lexington.
Lexington, however, isn’t the only place I saw. The NFL Network had the preseason game between the Boston New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. It’s only pre-season, so the games don’t count, but I was happy to see the Patriots stomp the Iggles, 35-0. What I noticed, because I was deliberately looking for it, was that when the cameras panned the crowd at Lincoln Financial Field maybe, maybe! 1% of the crowd were masked.
In Philadelphia, which gave Mr Biden 81.44% of its votes.
Of course, as we have note previously, the City of Brotherly Love does not have an 81.44% vaccination rate, and the Philadelphia zip codes with the lowest vaccination rates are heavily minority.
Well, I think the pro-public health majority is also getting increasingly angry, and rightly so. It just hasn’t been vocal enough — and too few politicians have sought to tap into this righteous rage. (Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, is trying. He’s pointing out, correctly, that voting for his recall would probably install an anti-vaccine, anti-mask fanatic as governor, with dire consequences for the state.)
So it’s time to stop being diffident and call out destructive behavior for what it is. Doing so may make some people feel that they’re being looked down on. But you know what? Your feelings don’t give you the right to ruin other people’s lives.
How, I have to ask, is Dr Krugman’s life being ruined? He is, or so I have inferred from his column, vaccinated, he is able to work from home, and he is perfectly capable of wearing a mask. His chances of contracting COVID-19 have to be pretty low, but, in the end, it’s not about his chances of catching the virus that have him outraged. No, what has him so angry is that not everybody is doing what he believes they should be doing.
The left are like that these days.
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Yup.
Virginia hasn’t re-imposed mask mandates yet, but plenty of business are posting “masks required per CDC recommendation” signs…which are being soundly ignored, even in one of the three areas of the state that votes overwhelmingly democrat every election.
Of course, that doesn’t really “prove” that the polls cited are wrong…Democrats routinely work to impose mandates on other people that they don’t want to apply to themselves. If it weren’t for double standards, Democrats wouldn’t have any standards at all.